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Sound Reinforcement - Forums for Live Sound Professionals - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Live Sound Forums => LAB Lounge => Topic started by: Scott Holtzman on March 17, 2017, 11:43:21 PM
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Before I just blindly post in the marketplace I need some advice. Corporate gig with five fly dates. Our gear is going on the clients truck and our team is operating it.
I am not getting much help from the hotels, trim heights keep changing and I can't get answers on power.
Even coordinating with ESI on where the tables are going is nightmare. It was a monumental battle to get a FOH/camera platform. Anyway I am digressing.
Seems my path of least resistance is to hire someone from each market to go advance the rooms for me.
Am I on the right path?
For folks I know hear the cities are Midtown Manhattan, Miami Beach, Boca Raton, Lodi and LA - feel free to PM me.
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Well, the big corp people would fly one of their project managers in for a site visit. So, having someone local either report on the room or go see them in person would be prudent.
Hotels are definitely notoriously hard to work with. If you're not using *their* AV, then they don't have much motivation to help the outside vendor. However, they should be able to answer power questions easily. In regards to trim heights-- do you mean actual ceiling height, or where your PA/truss is going to trim at? Ceiling heights should be readily available. Typically, you can pop onto a venue's website and find details including room dimensions. But, power's not usually as easily available. As the project team, I'd somewhat expect you to dictate (based on coverage and the ceiling height) the PA/truss trim height. Tell them what you're gonna do. :)
Re the foh/cam risers-- Might be worth buying a couple of decks and having them on the truck with you. That way, you never worry about having them available!
-Ray
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Well, the big corp people would fly one of their project managers in for a site visit. So, having someone local either report on the room or go see them in person would be prudent.
Hotels are definitely notoriously hard to work with. If you're not using *their* AV, then they don't have much motivation to help the outside vendor. However, they should be able to answer power questions easily. In regards to trim heights-- do you mean actual ceiling height, or where your PA/truss is going to trim at? Ceiling heights should be readily available. Typically, you can pop onto a venue's website and find details including room dimensions. But, power's not usually as easily available. As the project team, I'd somewhat expect you to dictate (based on coverage and the ceiling height) the PA/truss trim height. Tell them what you're gonna do. :)
Re the foh/cam risers-- Might be worth buying a couple of decks and having them on the truck with you. That way, you never worry about having them available!
-Ray
I'd rather locally rent low-value, high mass items than truck them across the country. Renting decks, camera risers etc from the in house company can build a bit of good will that may come in handy later.
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Ray summed it up quite well. Hotels are full of... surprises!
Going to each venue in person is the best way to make sure all is as expected.
Perhaps you can encourage the client to pay for a site check visit to make sure their gig goes smoothly.
If not, a local person would be better than none.
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I'd rather locally rent low-value, high mass items than truck them across the country. Renting decks, camera risers etc from the in house company can build a bit of good will that may come in handy later.
This company makes high value high mass products and we have 12' of pack in the truck. I am not opposed to renting what we need but this is the companies first roadshow and they brought production late into the game. To derisk it they decided to send out of of their trucks and crews. They have to unload their samples and the deck is quite small, as is this entire production relatively. Average room size is 5000 square feet.
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I'd rather locally rent low-value, high mass items than truck them across the country. Renting decks, camera risers etc from the in house company can build a bit of good will that may come in handy later.
This is true... however, to *ensure* quality, availability, etc, unless you already have a trusted vendor in the city (both Scott and the client are new to this adventure) carrying it is the best bet. You're right in that it's going to be expensive (weight wise) but with a already well loaded 53 footer? Negligible increase. And with staging decks $75-$100 per 4x8 (in my neck of the woods) this tour will pay for half or more of the purchase cost, should he have taken that route!
-Ray
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This is true... however, to *ensure* quality, availability, etc, unless you already have a trusted vendor in the city (both Scott and the client are new to this adventure) carrying it is the best bet. You're right in that it's going to be expensive (weight wise) but with a already well loaded 53 footer? Negligible increase. And with staging decks $75-$100 per 4x8 (in my neck of the woods) this tour will pay for half or more of the purchase cost, should he have taken that route!
-Ray
Ray helped with this decision immensely. Just another reason this is such an amazing place. Reinvesting the profits was the right decision for us.
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As someone who works AV in hotels, I will say that I have always found it more beneficial to advance a show with outside AV - I get to know the WX freqs they're using, what power is being used, and maybe help some cool people with items they forgot or beed supplemented.
We all need to eat, but the table is bog enough.
I say call the AV crew at the other locations and see if they can help you out with specifics for trim height, etc.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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For quite a few years I was the onsite technical producer/director (as a freelancer) for domestic conferences for one company that held a good number of conferences. I was hired by the production company that had the contract for these shows. They were relatively small, with from 650 to 1500 attendees. These were held in 4 and 5 star hotels. I was also part of the management crew for their symposiums US where we had around 10,000 attendees and the European ones where they held them in Monte Carlo, Euro Disney (when it was called that) and then they moved it to Cannes France.
The only thing that helped to keep me from going insane was their meeting planners were FANTASTIC. They knew how to negotiate with the hotels and had a lot of the basics spelled out in their contracts. When you come in and basically book all of the rooms in a hotel and then some, you have a LOT of pull as to what is provided. The conference rooms were always booked on 24hour holds so they couldn’t make us break down for some banquet or something else, for some other client.
As far as carrying camera platforms I would suggest that you find the relatively small 2 piece versions, one piece for the camera to sit on and a separate piece for the operator to sit, with a stool or high chair or stand on. And always take them with you. A 4x8 foot riser is too big and puts the camera and the camera person on the same piece. Thus the shot will bounce if they even just shift their weight. Also the 4x8 ones the hotel provides are big enough that people will sit on it and shake the camera. The hotel risers are usually carpeted and not always the most stable things to start with. We had one cameraman who would pour water on the carpet around the places where people might sit and then if someone went to sit on it he would tell them don’t sit there it is wet. It worked great.
Here is a quick google search of one type of platform solution that is 2 pieces. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=137162&gclid=CJWa8r6b5dICFUSBswoduo4A9A&is=REG&ap=y&m=Y&c3api=1876%2C92051677802%2C&Q=&A=details
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4'x4' risers work great for camera. Most hotels have room dimensions and ceiling heights on their websites. The only issue I have found with ceiling heights is the it usually goes to the heights point and doesn't take bulk heads and such into account.
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As someone who works AV in hotels, I will say that I have always found it more beneficial to advance a show with outside AV - I get to know the WX freqs they're using, what power is being used, and maybe help some cool people with items they forgot or beed supplemented.
We all need to eat, but the table is bog enough.
I say call the AV crew at the other locations and see if they can help you out with specifics for trim height, etc.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
From my POV, being the outside contractor in your hotel, I try to be the "guest on a mission." Part of that is developing a relationship with the in-house provider.
While I'm all about being fully self-contained or getting my client to pay for deck sections, I'd rather throw the in-house provider a bone for some of the stuff that I can be reasonably certain they can do. I may bring my own stuff, too, so if a problem develops I'm covered - but having the in-house provider as a part of my team makes sense.